The computer-based storage of information has become the norm for our knowledge-based society, and today huge databases of computer-stored information are available to researchers. For example, through the World Wide Web service, the Internet has become an enormous repository of readily accessible information. However, the sheer volume of information maintained on the World Wide Web becomes problematic when someone wishes to identify those resources, or documents that are maintained on the Internet and that are related to a certain topic. The problem is that a simple search request for information stored on the Internet and related to a certain topic returns an enormous volume of information, most of which is extraneous and irrelevant. This problem arises in part from the difficulty that existing Internet retrieval systems have with prioritizing and categorizing documents stored on the World Wide Web. Today, most systems for organizing content on the web work by searching through a document stored on the web, and associating with the document a set of key words that represent the information contained on the reviewed pages. Accordingly, documents can be organized according to the keywords that appear in the document.
However, lists of keyword, although helpful, lack an identifiable hierarchy of concept and therefore fail to provide a topic-based system for organization and document retrieval. Thus, keyword lists are less powerful tools for document research than topic-based hierarchal systems of document organization, such as tables of content, or topic indexes. Today there is a need for a “table of content” for the World Wide Web. Such a table of content would provide a more powerful metaphor for using the Web as a research tool and would provide a flexible platform on which other research tools could be built. As such, there is a need for improved systems for organizing information stored in a computer database, such as the World Wide Web.